Anger
by inclement
Summary: The difference between a man and a team. Part of a series of oneshots based on kirskipkat's lj prompts.


**Disclaimer**: Not mine, sadly  
**Warnings**: Some language, courtesy of Rui  
**Summary**: He's angry that all the things he's been through mean nothing in the end, and this time there will be no more chances.  
kirskipkat's "Practice Makes Perfect: Rui" prompt on lj  
**A/N**: I've been reading fanfic for a while, and I've just started writing it myself. This is my very first piece, so please tell me where I can improve [especially if I overuse parallelism ahahahahaha]!

The second-year sports policy at Zokuto Gakuen has never been the source of any conflicts. It's not that there are no teams at the school; there's the soccer team, the baseball team, the kendo team, the swim team, the boxing team and the American Football team, to name a few. It's that the students of Zokugaku simply _do not care_. At a school where teachers throw pocket knives at sleeping students instead of chalk, where cartons of cigarettes are sold next to the curry-pan, where class is more often than not dismissed by _another _fire on the second or third floor than the actual bell, sports are secondary to survival.

Then Habashira Rui enters his first year of high school.

By his second month at school, he has established a rough hierarchy with himself at the top. By his third, Zokugaku has had a full, uninterrupted day of school for the first time in five years. By his seventh, attendance has increased 47%, suspensions have decreased 83%, and students have (kinda) stopped bringing rusty pipes to class. By the time he is a second-year, students at Zokugaku are normal high schoolers – except they check in their razor blades with their outdoor shoes, there is a roughly constructed rack for motorcycles instead of bicycles, and Advanced Art involves spray cans as the medium and public property as the canvas, so maybe not. All of these changes, everything that he has fought tooth and nail for; it all leads to his one goal: to form the strongest American Football team in Japan.

His critics call his tactics cowardly, that switching his linemen and receivers prove he has no faith in his teammates. He doesn't care. He can ignore the taunting, the doubt, because he has a dream. His opponents can laugh all they want; he'll laugh harder when he's done _pummeling them into the ground._

One day Habashira Rui meets the Deimon Devilbats.

_Fuck_ is all he can think when Raimon Taro, better known as Monta, appears. _Fuck, when did they get a wide receiver?_ , he thinks when he realizes all of the time he spent forcing his teammates to refine their rushing is useless. _Fuck, why isn't this running back afraid of me?_, he thinks when Eyeshield 21 slips right through his fingers for the third time. _Fuck, how is this team winning?_, he thinks. 'Winning', not 'beating' because 'beating' would mean the Devilbats are _better _than the Chameleons and that is just. not. acceptable. But losing? Losing is okay, because there's a saying that goes something like

"_On the field anyone will taste humiliation once or twice while playing. A player that never suffered from it doesn't exist. But the first-class players as a tribute to all their efforts will quickly stand up. The average players will stand up after a while and the losers will keep lying down on the ground_."

So he picks himself up and dusts himself off because Habashira Rui is not a loser.

He knows his training is Spartan, cruel, inhumane. But he knows whatever _he _is making his team do must be thirteen times worse, so he doesn't blink an eye when he ties his running backs to his motorcycle or randomly tosses hand grenades at his receivers. He's never thought once that maybe, just maybe, the Devilbats do those demonic drills willingly.

And Habashira Rui waits until the day he can face Hiruma Yoichi again.

But waiting isn't really the right word, because 'waiting' implies he's doing nothing, and that's the exact opposite of what he's doing. It still smarts to remember losing, but fuck if that's going to keep him down. And there within lies the ultimate difference between the two leaders. One thinks _I'm going to win the Christmas Bowl, _and the other thinks _We're going to win the Christmas Bowl._

But before he can do so, Habashira Rui plays the Kyoshin Poseidon. And loses.

It's true, he only loses. He still picks himself back up, ready for more. But it's his _team_ that is beaten. It's the Chameleons that fall and _don't get back up._ And that makes all the difference in the world.

He's angry. He's angry that all the things _he's_ been through means nothing in the end. Even in the end, he thinks about himself and himself only. Because it's always been about him, hasn't it? The only one trying, the only one willing, the only one with a dream. So it only makes sense that when he's angry, he's angry at himself.

Habashira Rui is angry because he's finally realized that his teammates don't trust him, that his teammates stopped fighting halfway through, that his teammates gave up, because he's never really believed in them.


End file.
